


The Ruining of Andromeda Tonks

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, andromeda tonks deserves a break, this is so sad I am so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:49:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28847829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: No one was talking to her anymore. Teddy, her darling Teddy, was the only other soul that dared make a noise. Together, they screamed as Nymphadora Tonks- No, Nymphadora Lupin was buried. As the universe continued on as if it had not lost its brightest star. As if Andromeda didn’t watch the best thing to ever happen to her disappear into the wet earth.
Relationships: Andromeda Black Tonks/Ted Tonks
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	The Ruining of Andromeda Tonks

The sun was high as Andromeda clutched her wailing grandson close to her chest. Rocking back and forth on the edge of her seat, she wasn’t sure who she was working harder to soothe, herself or the baby. 

People were talking to her. Talking at her was perhaps more accurate, but they were talking nonetheless. Their faces were sunken, sullen messes of what they once were. 

Their condolences bounced from her ears before she could register them at all. She didn’t know what anyone was saying, but she knew they were talking.  **_They just kept talking._ ** The noise was closer to something you would overhear through thin walls than it was to a conversation. 

Nymphadora’s casket was finally lowered into the ground. 

Her daughter. 

Her only child. 

Her Dora. 

Molly scooped Teddy from her arms before Andromeda fell to her knees. Her shaking fingers dug into the soil, still wet from the storm the night before. Dirt wedged itself beneath her nails. 

She let out a scream. Croaking and guttural, she could feel its shaking in her bones: her dirt-covered fingers, her ribs, her skull, every fiber of her exhausted, worn down being. Her throat ran raw as the sobs racked through her. 

No one was talking to her anymore. Teddy, her darling Teddy, was the only other soul that dared make a noise. Together, they screamed as Nymphadora Tonks- No, Nymphadora  _ Lupin  _ was buried. As the universe continued on as if it had not lost its brightest star. As if Andromeda didn’t watch the best thing to ever happen to her disappear into the wet earth. 

She screamed for what must have been hours, for all she knew, it could have been days. She screamed, and appallingly, life went on. 

Her husband was dead. Her daughter was dead. Her sister that killed them, she was dead too, and Andromeda didn’t even get to kill her. 

Eventually, someone knelt beside her. It was a redhead, but she couldn’t be sure which one. 

“Mrs. Tonks,” Ginny said quietly. Her voice was low. It cut through the dull throbbing of Andromeda’s head. “Would you like to go inside? I can make you some tea.” 

She stood, clutching Ginny’s arm. “Whiskey,” 

The young woman sighed, she nodded through silent, falling tears. “I can arrange that.” 

The two of them walked through the abandoned lawn. She hadn’t noticed that everyone else had left. 

“Mrs. Tonks,” Ginny said when Andromeda had finally settled into an antique chair in the sitting room, a crystal glass of whiskey gripped in her aching hands. “I’m sorry. Truly, I’m very sorry.” 

The words swirled about her mind like a cyclone, colliding into grief and cherished memories it pulled from the furthest, nearly forgotten corners of herself. 

“Dear girl, it’s alright. This is what I get for choosing love when I was meant to choose duty.” Her fingers flexed around the glass. She was surprised it didn’t shatter under her grasp. “I suppose this is the price I must pay.” 

The young woman’s lip quivered. “We’ll look after Teddy. I think Harry has him now. Let me know if you need anything.” She didn’t wait for a response before she turned on her heels. 

Andromeda Tonks sat alone. 

It wasn’t fair, she thought as she drained her lipstick-stained glass. When she left home, when she had her portrait erased from that damned tapestry, when she married Edward, things were supposed to change. For once in her life, she had done something right and just and good. 

She abandoned the House of Black in every possible way in the name of love. The name of family. 

Now, that had been ripped from her. All while her sister, who followed their father’s demands to a tee, got to keep her family. 

Narcissa’s husband and child were alive, tucked away in some safe house where they could hide from any consequences they might face for their unforgivable actions. 

After decades of unlearning the poison her family fed to her, they were right. 

Falling for a muggle-born boy was her undoing. 

Edward Tonks, the boy with brown eyes that turned her entire world on its head, had ruined her.

But as someone wordlessly refilled Andromeda's drink, she mulled over the heartache that her family had promised her. The pain she felt reverberating through each cell of her body wasn’t begotten to her through hatred. This pain, this was not hatred. 

This, Andromeda decided, this was what it felt like love as recklessly as Nymphadora had taught her to love. 

This was what it felt like to give herself entirely to the Ravenclaw boy that scrounged up all his wit and courage to ask her to Hogsmeade when he knew the weight her last name carried. What it felt like to say yes when he got down on one knee years after that first date in the snow. 

Narcissa would never know how it felt to grieve until her vision went dark, and her voice grew hoarse, and the sky threatened to give in. She would not beg, borrow, and steal for just one more moment with the people she held closest to her withered heart. 

Narcissa Malfoy would never be ruined in the way her disappointment of an older sister had been ruined. 

The poor woman didn’t have the capacity for it. 

For Edward, for Dora, for Teddy, Andromeda would allow herself to be ruined all over again.

She pulled herself from the seat she stole from the Black Manor nearly twenty-five years ago in one last small act of defiance before she was erased from their memory.

She needed another drink. 


End file.
